


First Date

by cordeliadelayne



Series: The Nightingale's First Apprentice [1]
Category: Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
Genre: AU, Dating, Getting Together, Kissing, M/M, abigail is an apprentice, abigail is not your typical teenager, dinner date, peter is a policeman, peter isn't a wizard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-18
Updated: 2017-01-18
Packaged: 2018-09-18 10:09:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9379778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cordeliadelayne/pseuds/cordeliadelayne
Summary: Just because Abigail thinks it's weird that Peter is going on a date with her teacher, doesn't make it weird. After all, he's not the one who's apprenticed to a wizard.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hamsterwoman](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hamsterwoman/gifts).



> Written for hamsterwoman's 2016 fandom stocking.

“I still think it's weird.”

I didn't say anything, though I knew by now that that wouldn't make any difference.

“It's definitely weird.”

“It isn't _weird_ ,” I said finally. “Magic is weird, this is...”

“This is you going on a date with my teacher. Ugh.” Abigail scrunched up her face and fell dramatically back onto her bed.

I sighed. I'd only come by to see if she needed a lift back to the Folly. I was beginning to wish I hadn't bothered.

“Do you want a lift or not?”

“Fine. Hang on, let me just...” She waved her hand at the pile of clothes on the floor and started throwing them into a bag. Apparently two years living at the Folly with a maid to clean up after you hadn't done much for Abigail's cleaning skills.

“How do you manage to make so much mess? You're only here one weekend a month.”

Abigail's retort was in Latin, so I knew it had to be something rude. “Thomas didn't teach you that,” I said.

Abigail shuddered. “Inspector Nightingale did so teach me that.” She looked over at me and then grinned, that private little grin we share whenever the excitement of magic being real gets too much. “He told me not to tell you that he had, though.”

My lips twitched and just like that Abigail's interest in my love life was forgotten. For the moment.

Thank god.

Because it wasn't at all weird that I should fall for a man who was kind, and considerate, and clever, and honest and willing to take on a teenage apprentice for the first time ever and didn't mind in the slightest that her cousin sat in on her lessons to make sure there was, as her dad put it “no funny business” going on.

Of course, by six weeks in Thomas had thoroughly charmed Abigail's dad, and the rest of our extended family of relatives and not quite relatives, so there wasn't much reason for me to keep popping into the Folly, except that Molly had started cooking food just the way I like it and it wasn't as if the Case Progression Unit was keeping me all that busy. And magic was real, so there was that.

I wasn't supposed to know that Thomas had enquired about taking on another apprentice, a police officer this time, but the Commissioner had turned him down flat. Something about interested parties wanting to wait and see, whatever that meant. I tried not to let it bother me. I was learning a lot just from the stuff Abigail was telling me (which she absolutely wasn't supposed to be doing) and after the last case in Mayfair I'd become a sort of de facto liaison between the Folly and the rest of the Met, which at least got me out of the CPU every now and again. Though there was the small chance that this whole date thing might put paid to that.

Lesley thought the whole thing was weird. Not just about the magic, but about me and Thomas. It wasn't that I'd never felt the need to tell her I was bi, it was the fact that she'd uncovered the whole ageing backwards thing. She never failed to get a dig in whenever I mentioned the Folly, so I'd gradually stopped mentioning it. I suppose we'd never really been on the same wavelength, I just hadn't realised till lately just how differently we each saw the world.

“Stop moping and help me with this bag,” Abigail said.

“I'm not moping,” I muttered. I went to pick up the bag she indicated and nearly did my back in. “What the hell is in this thing?”

“Just some books,” she said, innocent as a newborn.

“Does Thomas know you have these?”

“They're not _his_ books,” she replied, which for some reason didn't make me feel any better. Thomas was very particular about his books. Didn't have a problem with kissing in the library, I'd discovered though.

“Bye dad!” Abigail called as we headed out.

A grunt from the bedroom was the only answer she got.

“Everything okay, there?” I asked.

Abigail shrugged. “Same old, same old.”

I decided not to push.

* * * * *

Molly greeted us with one of her usual smiles which used to be terrifying and now were – well, still terrifying, only slightly less so.

“I'm going to go unpack,” Abigail said, using magic to lift the bags up and get them to follow her up the stairs, a regular little Fantasia.

“Is he...?” I asked Molly.

She pointed towards the mundane library and then floated off to do whatever it is she does when she's not cleaning up after a wayward teenager.

I found Thomas sitting in his favourite chair, making notes on a police file. I've set him up with an email account but he still likes to print everything off. Or get someone else to print it off.

“Busy?” I asked, smiling as he startled in his seat. It's not often that I manage to do that, and I'm slowly becoming addicted to the way he relaxes when he thinks no one else is looking.

“Peter, is it that time already?”

“Time for our First Official Date,” I said, making sure he could hear the capitalisation. We'd actually been going out for dinner, and had a few kisses in this very library, for about a month, and since we hadn't, as Thomas put it, “got sick of the sight of each other yet,” he'd agreed to let Abigail know. The fact that she hadn't noticed herself before now had come as a genuine surprise to the both of us.

“I thought Chinatown might be a good venue, for a First Date?” Thomas said, standing up so that I could take in the light blue suit he was wearing, that perfectly highlighted his broad shoulders, and trim waist.

“And you wanted to see if the rumours about a new Chinese wizard are true?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

Thomas looked faintly guilty, which was another expression I hadn't seen before. “Ah, yes. Do you mind? Only...”

I stepped forward and kissed him quiet, just because I could. “I don't mind,” I replied.

Truth was I liked it that he trusted me enough to confide in me about his plans, in a way I don't think he was quite ready to do with Abigail, even though she was his apprentice and by all accounts making excellent progress for someone who hadn't been raised on Latin from birth.

“Do you just do everything backwards?” Abigail asked.

We jumped apart like we'd been electrocuted.

“Abigail,” Thomas said, coming to his senses quicker than me. “I didn't hear you come in.”

Abigail snorted. “Clearly. You're supposed to kiss _after_ dinner, not before.”

“You're quite right,” Thomas said, in all seriousness. “Peter is a terrible influence.”

I mocked glared at him but apparently I overdid it because suddenly Abigail gave out a gasp the likes of which have denoted secrets being unearthed for at least a millennia.

“This isn't your first date.” She said it accusingly, as you would when explaining to the murderer in your custody that DNA, fingerprints and CCTV footage all meant that he wasn't going to get away with whatever pathetic excuse for an alibi he was about to come up with.

“Do you mind?” Thomas asked. I'll give him this, he's never one to steer away from the difficult topics.

Abigail dismissed me with an eye roll but turned to look at Thomas, face so expressionless I had no idea what she might be thinking.

“Do you trust him?” she asked, startling me. I made an aborted motion to intervene but realised at the last moment that this wasn't my place; I wasn't one of them.

“Yes, I do. He isn't a threat to the Folly. And you still come first. You are my apprentice and I have sworn to protect you, no matter what.” He glanced over at me, quickly, and then back at Abigail. “I would of course not continue to see Peter if you would rather I concentrate solely on your studies instead.”

It was a bit hard not to take that part personally but I did my best. From what I understood about it, the oaths wizards take are far more serious than the ones us mere mortals are lumbered with, breaking them has far reaching and sometimes deadly consequences. I didn't want either of them to be put in that position, certainly not by me. I didn't want to give Thomas up without a fight, but I would if it meant protecting the Folly.

“Of course I don't want you to stop seeing him. Don't be stupid,” Abigail said, in a way I'd never have dreamed of speaking to a teacher. “I just wanted to make sure you weren't stringing him along.”

Thomas looked as equally baffled about how to take that as I felt. “I certainly wasn't intending to,” he replied after a moment; I wasn't quite sure he knew what stringing along meant.

“And you,” Abigail said, finally turning to me. “No sex in the common areas.” I was just about to object when she carried on, after a seconds thought, “Molly has enough to do without cleaning _that_ up.”

I looked over at Thomas, looking for some support, only to find him struggling very hard to keep a straight face. Bastard.

“I certainly wasn't intending to,” I replied, mimicking Thomas' earlier response.

Abigail muttered something in Latin under her breath, but it was something I recognised, so I responded in kind. Abigail didn't look surprised, but Thomas looked faintly pleased, for all of a second before he corrected my grammar.

“Can we please just go out to dinner?” I asked.

Thomas smiled at me. “Excellent idea. I expect that translation on my desk before you go to school tomorrow,” he told Abigail who sighed like every put upon teenager the world over and stomped up to her room. If I knew Abigail though she'd already finished it and was probably going to do something else for extra credit.

“How is she doing?” I asked, as we headed outside and started to walk towards Chinatown.

“Brilliantly,” Thomas said, real pride in his voice. “I've never known anyone grasp the formae quite as quickly.”

I smiled. It was hard to remember that I'd been as sceptical as anyone about a middle-aged man wanting to take a young girl in for private tutoring classes, but now I couldn't believe I'd been missing out on this world for so long. I was hoping I'd get to meet one of the Thames daughters soon, once I'd finished wearing down Thomas' objections. It was sweet, really, how protective he was, but now I'd been introduced to this world I couldn't imagine not taking full advantage of it, even if I wasn't allowed to do magic myself.

“You know, if I could -” Thomas started to say, before I cut him off with a kiss, right there in the street; it's becoming my favourite method of communication. Or not communication if you're the Lesley sounding voice in my head.

“I'm making a worthwhile contribution at the Case Progression Unit,” I said as we drew apart. “I haven't even had a single paper cut this week.”

“I thought most of your files were electronic?” Thomas asked, smiling slightly.

“You'd be surprised,” I responded, darkly, and then distracted us both with a story only half made up of a DCI of our acquaintance who'd uncovered a month's worth of paper reports hidden in a store cupboard because the PC in charge of filing them had gone in there for a quickie with her girlfriend and forgotten all about them.

By the time we were in Chinatown Thomas' shoulders had relaxed and I could feel the butterflies returning to my stomach as they did every time we were alone together. Or as alone as you could get in central London when every other person was a tourist who'd lost all ability to function in a crowd the minute they'd boarded a plane.

Thomas always knows the best places to eat so I let him choose. We ended up in a quiet place with some eye watering decor but what turned out to be the best tripe in hot chilli sauce I'd ever tasted. Thomas' choice was less heavy on the chilli but he seemed to be enjoying it.

I looked up when I realised I couldn't hear him eating to find him staring at me, a soft smile on his face I stored away for later.

“Okay?” I asked.

“Yes, very much so,” he replied, letting his legs brush against mine, and then kept them there. For a man who hadn't had a proper relationship in over forty years he was doing a pretty good job of making me wish we'd been doing this for a lot longer than a month.

“Okay, then,” I replied, and went back to concentrating on my dinner. After a few seconds Thomas picked up his chopsticks and carried on eating too.

“Okay, then,” I repeated, more to myself than him. Everything was going to be okay. It wasn't going to be the way I'd imagined it, no murder cases to sink my teeth into, far more paperwork than I'm really comfortable with, but there'd been no architecture either and I'd been okay with that, I could be okay with this.

I looked up and caught Thomas' gaze on me and that smile of his that only I get to see, only I bring out in him. I was absolutely okay with this. More than okay in fact.

Abigail meeting Thomas in Covent Garden that cold night in January was absolutely the best thing that had ever happened to all of us. And I was going to make sure that Thomas and I had plenty more memorable evenings to come. After all, there were a whole host of his expressions I was looking forward to teasing out of him, though judging by the way he was undressing me with his eyes, it wasn't going to be long before I catalogued the first of them.

And second and third, if what he'd told me about his renewed stamina was true.

(It was).


End file.
